Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise, born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, built an unusually varied film career from early 1980s coming-of-age pictures to large-scale action franchises. His parents were Mary Lee Pfeiffer, a special-education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. The family moved often during his childhood. Cruise attended Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey, where he joined the drama program after a wrestling injury. He made his film debut in Endless Love (1981) and appeared that year in Taps, playing military-school cadet David Shawn. His breakthrough arrived with Risky Business in The 1983 comedy made Cruise a recognizable leading actor as Joel Goodsen, a suburban teenager whose parents leave him home alone. In 1986 he played naval aviator trainee Pete Maverick Mitchell in Top Gun, directed by Tony Scott. The film became the year’s highest grossing domestic release and turned Maverick into Cruise’s signature role. He then worked with Martin Scorsese on The Color of Money (1986), Barry Levinson on Rain Man (1988), and Oliver Stone on Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Playing Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Stone’s film brought Cruise his Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Actor and a Golden Globe win. His subsequent dramatic roles included lawyer Mitch McDeere in The Firm (1993), vampire Lestat de Lioncourt in Interview with the Vampire (1994), and sports agent Jerry Maguire in Cameron Crowe’s 1996 film. The line, “Show me the money,” became closely associated with the movie. Cruise received another Best Actor Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe for Jerry Maguire. In Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), he starred opposite Nicole Kidman, his wife from 1990 to 2001. He earned a third acting Oscar nomination for portraying self help guru Frank Mackey in Magnolia (1999). Cruise has been central to the Mission: Impossible series, serving as producer as well as star. He first played Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt in Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996). Later installments showcased his willingness to perform stunts, including climbing the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) and hanging outside an Airbus A400M during Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015). In Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Cruise returned as Maverick more than three decades after the original. Directed by Joseph Kosinski, the sequel became the highest grossing film of Cruise’s career and earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination.